A fire in New Smyrna Beach has consumed about 1,300 acres and destroyed three homes. But most of the 1,000 people who were ordered to evacuate Sunday returned home Monday afternoon said Timber Weller, a spokesman for the state Division of Forestry.

A 12-mile stretch of Interstate 95 south of Daytona Beach was not expected to reopen until midmorning Tuesday because of fires burning in the median, according to Florida Highway Patrol. A 20-mile section of the interstate in Brevard County will be shut down early Tuesday morning as a precaution.

A brush fire forced the highway patrol to shut down more than four miles of Interstate 75 south of Tampa on Monday.

Smoke has been settling on roadways, contributing to collisions that have killed four people.

"Last year we were looking at 12 to 15 storms and this year the forecast is for about 17. No one would go out on a limb and say it is going to be just as bad as last year, but the indications are there that it is still going to be another active season, almost twice as active as normal."

Last year's hurricane season was the most destructive on record.

There were 27 named storms, 15 hurricanes and seven intense hurricanes during the 2005 season. The worst damage was along the U.S. Gulf coast.

Scientists with the Colorado State University hurricane forecast team say the same factors that contributed to last year's violent season are still in play this year.

"The Atlantic Ocean remains anomalously warm, and tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures have continued to cool," says Colorado University forecaster Phil Klotzbach, explaining two of the key triggers for hurricanes.

The Eastern seaboard has been locked in an active storm period for the past decade and while these seasons are normally cyclical, no one knows when, or if, the active period will end.

"Is this global warming? From now on will we see only active hurricane seasons? That's the big question," says Canadian weather guru Dave Phillips of Environment Canada.

While there is no scientific proof that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is breeding more hurricanes, Phillips says global warming could be contributing to the unusual power of the big storms, like last year's Katrina.

"We are seeing stronger hurricanes - almost a 100 per cent increase in category fours and fives," he says.

"When they do develop, they're a lot bigger, tougher and have more destructive power. They stay together longer. This is the concern. They seem to have more power. That could have a connection to global warming - the fact the atmosphere has changed and ocean temperatures have warmed."

Forecasters stress that there is no way to know, at this point, how many big storms will make landfall or whether any will be able to pick up enough steam to significantly affect Eastern Canada.

That's what happened in 2003, when hurricane Juan stoked up energy from unusually warm waters off northeastern North America and blasted the Maritimes, causing death and destruction in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and parts of New Brunswick.

Phillips says that despite this year's grim forecast, a lot can happen to shut down offshore hurricanes and prevent them from causing onshore harm.

"The temperature of the water has to be right, the winds have to be just perfect, the timing has to be just so and the depth of the water has to be just so," Phillips says.

"It's like baking a souffle. A lot of things have to come together and if someone slams the door, it won't rise."

Phillips adds that, curiously, what happens in the Pacific with the La Nina phenomenon can have major impact on the Atlantic hurricane season.

La Nina refers to a pattern of usually cold surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The east-to-west winds of La Nina tend to be more favourable for producing hurricanes in the Atlantic.

While La Nina has been the dominating factor in the Pacific for the past two years, it appears to be easing.

NASA oceanographers say they believe La Nina will not affect Atlantic hurricanes this year.

Whatever happens, people who have experienced the wrath of a major hurricane are taking precautions.

A 2005 Environment Canada survey of about 500 Halifax-area residents, obtained by The Canadian Press through Access to Information, found that a majority of respondents - 53 per cent - now feel vulnerable to hurricanes.

It also found that 71 per cent of respondents would do things differently if another hurricane like Juan is forecast for the area.

Nova Scotia resident Lynn Brooks, who lives near Halifax, was one of thousands of Maritimers who experienced property damage and power outages during Juan.

Brooks says she now keeps extra water in her home, because if the power goes out, her well goes off.

"I think I'm like a lot of people in this region," she says.

"We will never taken another hurricane warning for granted."

Socorro Nacional deputy director Carlos Ivan Marquez said that in addition to the dead, the heavy rains since January have completely destroyed 943 homes and damaged more than 7,100 in the country, affecting about 82,400 people.

"The rains have affected thousands of farms and infrastructure and families in remote and high-risk areas, hitting them hard economically," Marquez said.

Max Henriquez, deputy director of the state hydrology and meteorology agency, said the rains will continue to batter much of Colombia, with the agency predicting another five weeks.

"There is an alert for all of the departments in the center of the country for sudden rises in upland rivers and landslides," he said.

Key capabilities

The goal of B612, a confab of scientists, technologists, astronomers, astronauts, and other specialists is to significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner by 2015.

In detailing today's NEO situation, Schweickart said there are several givens: That the Earth is infrequently hit by asteroids which cross our orbit while circling the Sun; the consequence of such impacts ranges from the equivalent of a 15 megaton (TNT) explosion to a civilization ending gigaton event; and for the first time in the history of humankind we have the technology which, if we are properly prepared, we can use to prevent such occurrences from happening in the future.

"Remember, we're dealing here with a less frequent, but far more devastating Katrina ... a Katrina of the Cosmos," Schweickart reported. "NEOs happen so infrequently that even though they are orders of magnitude more devastating, people don't naturally make that match," he told SPACE.com, "but you don't want to be caught with your pants down."

There are key capabilities, Schweickart said, which will enable humanity to avoid devastating cosmic collisions: Early warning; a demonstrated deflection capability; and an established international decision making process.

While some progress is being made, there remains significant work ahead in all these areas, Schweickart emphasized.

Sky-sweeping surveys

Given sky-sweeping surveys and extrapolating into the future, by 2018 on the order of 10,000 NEOs with some risk of impact over the next 100 years are likely to be cataloged, Schweickart forecast - but there is better than an even chance that none of these 10,000 will actually hit the Earth in those 100 years.�

"The important fact however, is that a substantial number of them will appear as though they may be headed for impact," Schweickart advised. Today, of the 104 currently on impact listings, "two have an elevated risk and we are watching them closely," he said.

At present, the two asteroids on that "keep an eye on them roster" are 2004 VD17 and Apophis, formerly listed as 2004 MN4.

"Extrapolating to 2018 we may have as many as 200 in a similarly elevated attention category and of growing concern to the general public," Schweickart reported today. "Therefore, it is certainly possible, if not likely, that in the timeframe of the next 12 years we--the world--may well be in a position where we need to take action to insure that we will be able to carry out a deflection mission if needed," he said.

The U.S. Congress amended the Space Act in 2005 to charge NASA with responsibility to "detect, track, catalogue, and characterize" NEOs greater than some 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter. However, it has, thus far, come up short on actually assigning the responsibility to take action should one of these objects be discovered headed for a collision, Schweickart pointed out.

There is a bit of good news forthcoming, Schweickart explained. The Congress did require NASA to provide by the end of 2006 an analysis of possible alternatives that could be employed to divert an object on a likely collision course with Earth. In response to this Congressional directive, NASA is about to announce a process for carrying out this mandate.

Global threat ... global response

Schweickart told the ISDC audience here, that a third leg of the triad for protecting the Earth from NEO impacts is probably the most challenging, albeit subtle.�

"It is complicated by two related facts," he said, that NEO impacts are a global threat, not a national one, and the only decision making body representing, essentially, the whole planet is the
United Nations--a body not known for timely, crisp decision making, he added.

Still, in this area, steps forward are being made.

The Association of Space Explorers (ASE)--the professional organization of astronauts and cosmonauts--has formed a committee on NEOs which Schweickart chairs. Earlier this year, a technical presentation at a UN meeting in Vienna apprised them that this issue was coming at them.

While the UN has been brought the problem, Schweickart said, the ASE is committed to bringing them a solution. This solution will take the form of a draft United Nations treaty--or protocol--formulated in a series of workshops over the next two years.

"In these NEO Deflection Policy workshops we will gather together a dozen or so international experts in diplomacy, international law, insurance, and risk management, as well as space expertise to identify and wrestle with these difficult international issues," Schweickart noted. "Our goal is to return to the UN in 2009 with a draft NEO Deflection Decision Protocol and present it to them for their consideration and deliberation."

Facing the challenge

In wrapping up his ISDC talk, Schweickart said the NEO challenge, in a sense, "is an entry test for humankind to join the cosmic community." He reasons that, if there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe "it is virtually certain that it has already faced this challenge to survival ... and passed it."

"Our choice is to face this infrequent but substantial cosmic test ... or pass into history, not as an incapable species like the dinosaurs, but as a fractious and self serving creature with inadequate vision and commitment to continue its evolutionary development," Schweickart concluded.

"A column of gases and ashes over the crater have reached the altitude of several kilometers...and avalanches of melted debris have been moving down the slope at a speed of about 30km/h (19 mph)," the expert said.

Ozerov said that a cloud of ashes, which is expected to reach the height of 10 km (6 miles) and the diameter of up to 1,000 km (622 miles), had been slowly drifting toward the Pacific Ocean.

"There is a threat to flights along the eastern coast and over of the peninsula," Ozerov said.